by Martha Woods
“No.” She shook her head, giving Alexis’ fingers a small squeeze in return. “I just want to know what kinds of things I should prepare myself to do, and what I should make sure everyone else is prepared to do. I don’t have any problems with how you want to handle it, but I want to make sure that I can serve my role in it as best as I can.”
“Well,” Alexis said, “I can assure you that you’re going to do exactly that. You always do.”
“Thanks Alex, do you mind if I get back to work now? I had a client that I was talking into a dance, if I’m lucky he’ll still be waiting for me.”
“Of course, we don’t want to hold you up any longer than we have to. Do you have anything you want to ask her Amy?”
“No, I think that we’ve covered just about everything, if I need to know anymore I’ll get in touch with you.” Standing to my feet, I took Holly’s hand and shook it briefly, still utterly transfixed by the green in her eyes. “It was very nice to meet you Holly.”
“You too, I hope that you won’t be a stranger around here.” She winked, stepping back towards the door. “Friends of Alex get a discount by the way.”
“Wow,” I said, turning around once the door had closed, “She knows how to give a sales pitch doesn’t she?”
“She’s one of my best. Not just in dancing or in her skills, she’s a natural leader, if any of the other workers have a problem that they need tended to or a question that they need answered she’s the first one that they go to. By the time I even hear about half the problems they run into she’s already gone ahead and solved them, it’s wonderful. There’s a reason that I make sure she gets paid more.”
“I didn’t know that you could get a manager’s position in a strip club.”
“Every business has its own jobs like that, even if they don’t actually get called that. Everyone who works here knows that aside from me and my brother, she’s the one with the most ability to help them with whatever it is that they need help with. With her looking out for everyone and with her eyes and ears looking out for secrets, I don’t doubt that we will find something if there is actually something to find.”
“You’re still not fully convinced?”
“It’s not that, I just don’t know if we’re going to get anything by relying on any metaphorical traitors ignoring the first rule of keeping a secret.”
“And what’s that rule?”
“The first rule is to actually keep it a secret, which means you don’t go around town telling everyone who can listen your business.” She almost looked offended at the notion, but not for the reason that I had thought. “Honestly, what kind of self-respecting traitor would you have to be to do that? It’s not difficult to just keep your mouth shut, so why is it as soon as two drinks and a woman get involved that these idiots find it so hard to clamp down and remain silent?”
“You sound like you’re speaking from experience.”
“A good few years ago I found out that someone was planning to sabotage the club that I worked at, while I was giving him a dance. He didn’t seem to realize that telling the dancer that is attending to you that she might be out of a job soon was a pretty bad plan, and he paid dearly not even twenty minutes later.”
“Did you call the bouncer?”
“No, I called my boss. My boss who was absolutely nowhere near as politically minded as I was and also was far more of a criminal than I could ever think of being, bless him. In twenty minutes that client was in a dumpster on the other side of town and I had another three thousand dollars in my pocket to keep quiet about the whole thing.” She smirked. “Unlike some people, I know when to shut up.”
“Really?” I asked, running my finger along the rim of my glass and grinning to myself, “I would say that just about our entire relationship has been marked with you having absolutely no idea when to shut up.”
“Oh very funny, I suppose that’s something that we can both bond over sharing then isn’t it?” Pouring me another drink, she slid the glass back over to me and refilled her own. “How are things going with you? You’ve looked distracted the last few times that we’ve met.”
“Have I?” I replied, in a vain attempt to pass off like I wasn’t aware of how transparent it was that something was wrong. The look on her face said all I needed to know about my success. “It’s… Damon.”
“Ah,” She said, nodding her head in understanding, “I figured it would be. He was always more of a handful than Vincent wasn’t he?”
“I wouldn’t say it like that… he’s just been having a hard time adapting to these changes in his life, I can’t really blame him for that. Vincent’s had hundreds of years to get used to how he is now, Damon has only had a few months. That’s a pretty short amount of time to adapt to something as big as becoming a vampire.”
“It is, but there’s something more to it isn’t there?” She sighed, “Becoming a vampire is a very big change, but he’s not alone in it. He has Vincent to help him, not to mention the entire coven that lives on the other side of town, his support system is definitely not lacking. So what is it that’s bothering him so much? Does he really hate everything so much that he’s intentionally shunning all possible help?”
“I don’t know,” I said, “I honestly don’t. We’ve talked about it a few times over the last few months, but he just keeps insisting that he’s ok, even when it’s so clear that he isn’t. He’s gone whenever I get back, and the few times that he’s still there only last a few hours before he decides to leave again while I’m asleep. I just… I don’t know what I can do to actually help him, Vincent and I discussed it and thought it best to just give him space, but I don’t actually know if that’s the best option, do you? What if… what if he just doesn’t love us anymore?”
“I’m going to be honest with you Amy, I had absolutely no idea how the two of you stayed together, especially when it was clear that you loved Vincent just as much. I thought for sure that he would leave when you insisted on trying to make things work between the three of you, so imagine my surprise when not only does he accept this new relationship with a smile on his face, he actually looks happier than I’d seen him in years.” Even though she smiled, I could still see a hint of sadness in her face. Feelings don’t just die overnight after all. “The relationship that you three share is something that I never thought would be possible, and it’s something so strong that he actually died for it. He gave him life to give you a chance with someone other than himself, that’s true dedication. Whatever it is that he’s going through, as hard as it may be, he’s not going to just decide to leave you over nothing. All of you have given too much for that to happen.”
“But what do I do to make it better?” I asked, “Is my only option really to just wait and hope that he comes to me, whenever it is that he decides to do so, if he decides to do so?”
“Yes, I think that is your only option, and it might be the most important one that you choose. Sometimes people need space to think for themselves, no matter how loving and understanding the people around them are. And even if that wasn’t the case… relationships are not just a one-way street, there is give and there is take. You shouldn’t be the one always coming out and laying yourself on the line every time something hurts their feelings, they should be willing to put the work in and come to you themselves. Anything less than that is just taking advantage of you, and that will burn you out and make you resent them more than anything else that could happen.”
I laughed, not expecting to have gotten an entire speech on the nature of relationships. “You know a lot about this, have you ever thought about writing a book?”
“I’ve had to mend more than a few broken hearts, boyfriends and girlfriends don’t always take it well when they find out this is where their partners work. I’ve gotten a lot of practice at this point.”
“Well how lucky that I’ve got a relationship guru as a friend then.” I stood, drinking the last of the bourbon in my glass before nodding my thanks. “I should get out of yo
ur hair, you’ve got a lot of things to sort out I’m sure.”
“You’re welcome back anytime Amy, just call ahead first to make sure that I’m here.”
“Or not otherwise occupied with company I guess.”
She scowled, driving me towards the door with the sheer force of her glare. “You’re no longer welcome back anytime.”
THERE WERE a lot of things that I needed to take care of, the vampires, the werewolves, they all had to be on the right track if we were going to actually be able to fight effectively without endangering the people that we were supposed to protect in the crossfire.
But honestly? I had to get home right now, it was getting late and… I wanted to be there for Damon if he decided to make his way back home to us. I know that I said that I would give him space, and I’m determined to stick with that if it’s what he needs, but he needs to know that if he comes to us for help, if he needs us in the moment for something so small as just listening to him, he needs to know that we’ll be there for him. Plus it would be a good way to determine if what he’s doing out there every night is just walking around to clear his head and get used to his new body, or if he was seeking out a fight to feel a bit more like the old days. In which case I might have a bit more to say to him.
It’s funny, normally in a movie or something like that it would be the man in the relationship coming back home smelling like a strip club, and he’s usually cheating on her or plotting her death or something like that. And while I wasn’t planning to kill Vincent or Damon and had a healthy enough relationship that I wouldn’t even think about cheating, it still stuck out as a strange little thing to me. At least I didn’t have any lipstick on my collar, but I’d probably end up tracking some amount of glitter into the carpet, nobody is that careful.
Still, while I’m driving back and preparing myself for how much Vincent’s eyes rolled at learning where I had been, there was no reason that I couldn’t handle some business over the phone, and since vampires were pretty good at keeping themselves in the twenty first century there’s no one better to call than Joseph right?
“Hello?” Came the sleepy reply through my speakers, the receiver sitting above my head clipped to the roof, “What do you need at this early hour Amy?”
“Joseph!” I chirped, absolutely too happy for his tired ears no doubt, “I’m just driving myself home and I thought that I should call, is now a bad time?”
“It’s always a bad time my dear, these cell phones will give us all cancer. Can you imagine a vampire with cancer?”
“No, and I’m pretty sure you can’t either, besides I’m pretty sure it was just those Lethal Weapon style phones that were going to do that.”
“I have one of those sitting in the basement, me and all the other residents of this house are well and truly doomed.” He cleared his throat, the shuffling of fabric on fabric indicating that he was rising from his bed. The muffled protests of his two lovers only confirmed it further. “Now what can I do for you Amy? I assume that you didn’t call me just to tell me how excited you are to be driving today.”
“Nope, I actually had a few questions that I wanted to ask you. Not cop type questions, I don’t think you’ve done anything bad… at least not lately.” I shook my head, trying to shoo away the tangent that I was in danger of continuing. “What I mean is that I was hoping that you could tell me how the search for other vampires is going. You’ve been at it for a while, I’ve heard that you’re working all day and night sometimes, hopefully you’re still actually on speaking terms with at least some of them.”
“At least some of them?” Joseph laughed, sounding more awake with every passing second, “You make me sound unlikable, I’ll have you know that not only are many of them still on speaking terms with me, I’m also lucky enough to call some of them friends, imagine that.”
“Alright, alright, I’m sorry. Maybe I made you sound a little harder to get along with than you actually are, you’re more than tolerable most of the time, is that better?”
“Oh Amy, all these compliments and I might think that you’re falling for me, wouldn’t that be tragic?” Passing the phone from one hand to the other and thumbing through what sounded like a notebook, he continued, “But to answer your question, yes I’ve been having some success with those that have actually picked up the phone. I’m not sure what it is that I should be asking them just yet, if it would be better for them to come to us or if we should consider spreading the influence of our alliance elsewhere, but there’s been a lot of support for what we’ve been doing nonetheless.”
“That’s good!” I couldn’t quite keep the surprise out of my tone, but I doubt he would care too much. He was the one who had told me chances were low in the first place, I likely wasn’t expressing anything he himself hadn’t already done so. “I think that right now they should stay where they are and we could send some people to them once all of this is through, if any other vampires just walk up to a werewolf or a hunter on the street they’re probably going to accomplish nothing except getting their legs broken and tied down to wait for the sunrise.”
“That’s very… creative Amy. Remind me not to mess up any of your drink orders when you come and visit.” He let out a sigh that was equal parts relaxing and anxiety inducing, such was the case with most things that Joseph did. “I have missed talking to some of them, more than I thought I would. Some of them I haven’t spoken to in decades, and yet after one phone call you would hardly believe that we stopped talking for a day, imagine that? I’ve known some of these people since before your grandparents were even born.”
“That’s… wow, yeah that’s kind of insane.” Even after all this time I couldn’t believe how old all these vampires were, just thinking of it was enough to make everything go fuzzy. Vincent was five hundred years old, do you know how old that is? Calculus hadn’t been invented yet, the country that I was standing in right now hadn’t been invaded by the Spanish, concerningly the same amount of people as today thought the world was flat! How do you even comprehend that you’re speaking with someone who sat and witnessed more or less every major event in history that you can think of? Until a few years ago I was spending every night that I had to myself passing out on the couch with Netflix running in the background, I definitely wasn’t going out every night cavorting with whatever dark forces of the week saw fit to come into town that week, I had other things to be doing.
“Who was the most famous person that you ever met?” I asked, and at that question he couldn’t quite help his laughter.
“Amy, if I told you that you would never believe it, and between us I don’t think either of us have enough time in the world for me to explain. Right now I think that we should focus on the present, and all the… oddities that come with it.”
“Alright, fine,” I said, “But you’re going to have to tell me some day, I’m not completely disbelieving about everything anymore.”
“Oh dear, that only means that you’re slowly losing your mind I fear. You’re almost fully like us in that case.” If you got him going he really could talk forever, and for better or worse it really didn’t take much at all to get him going. He had a good head for business, one day of speaking with him was more than enough to convince you of that, he could talk you into selling your own mother if he so desired, but sometimes… wow, it took him awhile to get to where he needed. “I reached out to some of our closest allies, they recently moved to the other side of the country. If we so desired, if circumstances necessitated it, I could put in a request to them and they could send some of their best and strongest for aid. While they are here we could introduce them to some of our locals, let them know that this alliance really is serious about working.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” I chuckled, “But if we’re going to do that we should probably let everyone else know well in advance. The hunters and werewolves are getting used to the vampires that already live here, but if some unfamiliar faces show up unannounced who’s to say what would happen then?”
“Something interesting no doubt, but I see your point. Who knows? They could very well turn their noses up at my request and tell me to go straight to hell. Vampire relationships are volatile at the best of times, for all I know they’re just trying to con me out of some idea of revenge.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Oh who knows, I probably slept with someone I wasn’t supposed to, what else could it possibly be?” Yawning to himself, the telltale sign with anyone that they were not exactly in the talking kind of mood, Joseph stretched briefly before saying to me, “Not that I’m not thrilled to be speaking to you again Amy, but I’m actually quite tired. I haven’t slept properly in what must be months, even vampires need to catch up sometimes.”
“I’ll never understand why that is, your organs don’t even work properly. It’s a mystery how you even digest food, let alone why you need sleep.”
“I’m going to tell you his Amy, I’ve been searching for an answer to those questions for literal centuries and I haven’t found anything. I’ll likely see the world go completely up in flames and still have no idea why my stomach still rumbles sometimes while my heart never beats, and I think we all just need to make peace with that.”
“Great, good to know that the search for answers is never ending. At least I’ll always have something to look forward to.” My apartment was looming in front of me, the lights shining through the shut curtains giving me some hint that someone was home, hopefully it would be a pair of someone’s, but if not I was prepared to count my blessings that someone was there at all. “I’ll let you get back to Mika and Ivanka, they sound like they’re missing you quite badly.”
“Oh you have no idea Amy, if you did you would likely be doing nothing except blushing.”